The US has barred government workers from traveling to a popular tourist area after a bombing — but the investigation is getting more complicated

The US Embassy in Mexico has barred government workers
from going to Playa del Carmen.

The embassy said it was responding to a "security
threat" after two incidents involving explosives in recent
weeks.

It's not clear where the explosives
came from or why the tourist area was targeted.

Less than a week after the US Embassy in Mexico issued an alert
cautioning US citizens about travel to Playa del Carmen, the
State Department has prohibited US government workers from
traveling to the resort area and closed the US consulate there in
response to potential danger in the area.

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The latest alert, issued March 7, said
the embassy in Mexico City had "received information about a
security threat in Playa del Carmen," in the state of Quintana
Roo on Mexico's Caribbean coast. US government employees are
barred from going there and the consulate is shuttered "until
further notice."

The alert also urges US citizens to exercise caution, purchase
travel and medical-evacuation insurance, and contact the nearest
US embassy or consulate if assistance is needed. Quintana Roo's
governor, Carlos Joaquin, said he didn't know the reason for the
closure and was willing to to cooperate with US authorities.

On February 21, there was an explosion on a
Cozumel-Playa del Carmen ferry as it was offloading passengers in
the latter city. The blast left a jagged hole in the side of the
ship near a passenger-seating area. The ferry was carrying 104
people. About 25 were reportedly injured, including two
Americans. None of the injuries were life-threatening.

Initial reports suggested a gas leak or mechanical failure could
have caused the blast, but the US Embassy's March 1 notice attributed it to "an
explosive device."

caption

Passengers disembark from a ferry in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, March 2, 2018. Undetonated explosives were found on another ferry that runs between Playa del Carmen and the island of Cozumel a day prior.

source

(AP Photo/Gabriel Alcocer)

On March 1, three undetonated explosive devices were found on another ferry
owned by the same company. A worker diving under the ship to
clean the hull spotted the devices, which appeared to be in a
length of PVC pipe tied to a pylon on the ship.

Local officials said the the ferry in question
was moored several hundred yards from the dock in Cozumel and had
been out of service for 10 months. But Mexican officials
suspended the ferry company's operating license, and cruise
lines, including Carnival and Royal Caribbean, cancelled shore excursions
involving ferries in Cozumel.

The ferry company, Barcos Caribe, is owned by Roberto Borge
Martin, the father of former Quintana Roo Gov. Roberto Borge
Angulo. Borge Angulo, a member of the governing center-right
Institutional Revolutionary Party, left office in 2016 and soon
after was accused of corruption while in office. He was expelled from the PRI in
mid-2017 and then arrested in Panama as he was about to board a
plane to Paris. He was extradited to Mexico in
January.

'Closed, corrupt, complicated'

caption

A police officer stands outside the Blue Parrot nightclub, where gunmen opened fire, killing several people and injuring others, in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, January 16, 2017.

source

REUTERS/Victor Ruiz Garcia

The origin of the explosives are not yet clear. Days after the
February 21 explosion, a banner appeared in Cozumel, purportedly
from a local criminal group claiming responsibility and
threatening the city's mayor with similar attacks.

A day after the undetonated explosives were found on the ferry in
Cozumel, Quintana Roo Attorney General Miguel Angel Pech, denied
that the explosion had been an act of terrorism, saying "it would be very risky
and also unethical on our part" to make that assertion "if we
don't have elements of proof."

Pech said on Monday that
investigators had not identified any organized-crime group
involved and in such a case federal authorities would take over.

Pech has also said one line of investigation is that Barcos
Caribe had orchestrated the attack. "We are looking at all the
test data necessary in order to have certainty, as of right now
we cannot confirm it," Pech said of the possibility
on the morning show Despierta con Loret. "It is one of the
investigation hypotheses because of the manner in which the
incidents occurred and the manner in which the news travelled
through the networks."

Pech said it was "strange" how details about
Barcos Caribe and its boats had travelled through the news and
other networks after the explosive devices were found on March 1,
given that military and government personnel had handled the
devices.

He also stressed that the focus
of the investigation was on a dispute or misunderstanding between
ships, rather than on the explosion itself. The FBI has also
offered to support the investigation, he said this week.

source

Christopher Woody/Business Insider

Local media has suggested the incidents could
stem from political feuding between the current government, led
by Joaquin, and the previous one, led by Borge.

Joaquin left the PRI in 2016, after 17 years of membership, and
later explained his quitting by
describing the party in the state as "closed, corrupt,
complicated" and "exclusive and discriminatory."

He eventually joined a coalition of the conservative National
Action Party and the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution
to compete for the state governorship, which he won in June 2016, taking
office in September that year.

This week, Mexico's attorney general said it had opened an
investigation through its office in Quintana Roo. The attorney
general's office said forensic specialists from the Criminal
Investigation Agency had been deployed to collect samples from
the scene.

In Quintana Roo, the number of homicide victims jumped to 359 in
2017, up from 165 in 2016, which were a decline from the 232
homicide victims in 2015. Data is only available for January this
year, but the 40 homicide victims that month are the
second-highest monthly total in the past three years.

Quintana Roo and Baja California Sur, which is home to the Los
Cabos resort areas (recently named the most violent city in the
world by homicide rate), were named in a US State Department
travel warning in August,
though a travel notice issued in January said there were no restrictions on travel in
either place.

Tourism is Mexico's third-largest source of income, bringing in
$21.3 billion in 2017. The
country welcomed a record 39.3 million tourists last year, and
Quintana Roo, which is also the home of resorts spots like Tulum
and Cancun, typically receives about one-third of the
country's visitors.